family photos: two+ years

my almost-sister-in-law, valerie, is an aspiring photographer. and when i say aspiring, i mean awesome. : ) she gave us a super sweet gift of a free photo session with her! here are some pictures from the shoot, and here’s a link to all of them.

definitely my favorite

well aren’t we just adorable.

can you say epic tree?

isn’t this so bryan?

sorry for the lack of actual posts, i haven’t had much time to write! hopefully i’ll catch up soon. until then, you’ll have to settle for lovely pictures and adoleo music videos.

july tuition update

this past month has been, to say the least, wonderful. i only have one job, praise the Lord! and while i’ve cut back on work, so has bryan. he’s taking a sabbatical if you will.

just in case you think we’re awesome at money stuff with all these posts, i’ll have you know that bryan hasn’t worked all of july for no particular reason and we’re totally okay with that. after all, bryan just has one more year of school and then he’ll begin working fulltime for the rest of his life. i think it’s totally okay for him to have one more summer in which he doesn’t have to work his butt off.

sometimes, it’s good for me to reduce my “gazelle intensity” for the sake of being human. i’m not going to be perfect all the time, no matter how much i’d like to be. we are definitely still striving to remain debt-free through college and i’m often intense about that goal. but bryan is going to get some good turnover hours this weekend and has a potentially awesome opportunity to work this fall, so we’re trusting God and His provision.

we’ve also had to do some budget slashing due to the fact that i’m not working like crazy anymore. i’m soooo thankful for one fulltime job that i love, but it does mean that i’m not making as much money. i’m also okay with that. i’m actually kind-of excited to start couponing more and making every effort to save as much money as possible.

all that being said, we were able to put a good chunk in savings this month, thanks to paychecks for june work that didn’t come until july. here’s the update:

tuition for 2011-2012 school year: $9,654.00
savings at the end of july: $3,724.36
difference: $5,927.64
percentage saved: 38.58%
percentage left to save: 61.42%

we only need $427.64 more and we’ll have everything except for the $5,500 in loans we’re taking out (the good kind-of loans-where we’ll have 6 months to pay it off with no interest). even if we can’t avoid loans entirely, i’m pretty confident we’ll be able to avoid paying any interest. we’re getting there!

for my non-facebook friends

sometimes, i get cahrazy and chop my hair off. and i know at least one person (ahem, leah) doesn’t have facebook. so this is for you, leah! here’s the new do! i’m pretty much in love with it!

here was my inspiration:

birthday week recap

to those of you using a reader or facebook to view my blog, congratulations, you get three blogs in one day! i know, i know, how could you be so lucky?

i got behind on blogging because it was my birthday last week and i was having too much fun to sit and blog. here’s the recap.

monday:
a co-worker took my shift at the coffee shop, i got to sleep in until 7am!
i worked at home all day until 4pm, but it did so from the comfort of my bed. i celebrated being caught up enough to officially pass off my work to my replacement.
my friend liz came over and we talked about marriage and life and ended our time with prayer. it was incredibly encouraging.
bryan and i watched the bachelorette with clint and miranda.

tuesday:
spent some time working on veritas stuff in the morning.
i arrived at my home just in time for the ups man to deliver my birthday presents from bryan.
i received 2 seasons of gilmore girls, a book about pattern-making and designing your own clothes, a local natives cd, and crash bandicoot 3 for the playstation. my husband likes to spoil me.
ami duvick came to visit me!
we grocery shopped, ate lunch, met with brenda and searched for rehearsal dinner locations in iowa city for my little brothers upcoming wedding.
we ate hyvee chinese and chocolate and ended the evening with a chick flick.

wednesday:
my actual birthday!
i opened for the last time at the coffee shop, wrote several emails, and attempted to organize my life a little.
bryan left for des moines before i got home, but left me one more birthday present: sims 3 for the ps3. yesssss.
my mom and i spent the rest of the day shopping in williamsburg and we ate at t.g.i. friday’s in des moines.
i received many birthday facebook messages, texts, and one very special voicemail from my dad. he’s the sweetest. thank you everyone!

thursday:
trained my replacement at iowa insulation for about 5 hours. once again, she is awesome.
spent the evening with bryan, audrey and james at hickory park and playing cards. ice cream and good times were had by all. especially me.
my connection group called me to sing me happy birthday. it made me almost cry. i felt very loved.

friday:
trained for 6 hours. done at iowa insulation!
went to meghan & brian’s brand new house in ames. hugged them and chatted with them for about an hour.
went to my parents house, played texas canasta, and had a birthday dinner. bacon cheeseburgers and gold bars. deliciousness.
home in iowa city by 8pm.

it was a wonderful week of happiness. it’s fun to feel so loved, many thanks to all who added to my fun!

june tuition update

well, bryan quit his summer job. haha. so much for him working as much as possible to boost our savings.

normally, i’d be stressing about how we’re actually going to pay cash for the rest of his college tuition. but God is good and He is with us. fareway wasn’t giving bryan more than 20 or so hours, so it was a little worthless anyway. for the record, he is looking for a new one. : )

bryan was also able to be very involved in the adoleo (formally anthem) recordings that have been taking place in des moines over the last three weeks. he absolutely loved being there everyday and to fully enjoy the recording experience. he was working fulltime during the last two albums he’s recorded so he literally just recorded his bass parts and left. on this album he laid down all of the bass tracks obviously, but also used his skills on the tenor sax and banjo. he even recording some gang vocals, which i personally think is hilarious. i love my husband and he has tons of musical talent, but he can’t sing to save his life.

so there was a little adoleo update for you. i’m so excited for you all to hear this upcoming album, it’s really really good!

meanwhile, i worked a lot of hours in june. between the coffee shop and my work at home job, i traveled to ames once a week to train my replacement. a lot of hours means a lot of money. but it mostly went to the cost of convenience. you couldn’t force me to eat any more pizza if you tried.

in the end we still banked some money towards that ever-present tuition fund. here’s our update!

tuition for 2011-2012 school year: $9,654.00
savings at the end of june: $3,161.66
difference: $6,492.34
percentage saved: 32.75%
percentage left to save: 67.25%

the month of june

it’s rather normal to desire that the month of june last as long as possible. but this year, i wanted it to go as fast as possible. i’ve been waiting all month to start my new job! i’ve been waiting to not have a crazy schedule and to not be so busy with work that i don’t even have time to grocery shop. i’ve been waiting!

and just as a watched pot never boils, time moved slowly this month.

here’s what i’ve been thinking about:

i’ve been complaining a lot this month. and when i say a lot, i mean pretty much everything i’ve said to bryan has been some form of a complaint. it’s been ugly. i’ve been pretty convicted about it lately, and i’ve found it’s one of those things that is like a can of pringles. once you pop, you just can’t stop. it’s been so difficult to stop the flow nasty comments coming out of my mouth! i guess i gave myself a lot of excuses because it has been a rather stressful month. so that’s the sin issue i’m working on right now, “do everything without arguing and complaining.”

i have been so encouraged about my replacement at my job in ames, she’s doing such a great job! she’s picking up on everything so quickly and smartly, especially considering the somewhat choppy training she’s getting from me as i’m in iowa city. i feel so great about leaving everything in her hands after this friday!

i love our connection group. we had a few new people join our group and it was as if they weren’t new at all. it was awesome! i’m also insanely thankful for holly, who is always willing to talk pride and prejudice or good deals with me.

i’m eager to be fulltime with veritas. i have so much to learn, so many ideas, and haven’t been able to really do much for the past month! yay for starting next tuesday!

i think that’s all, so there you go!

dream job

hopefully, the title of this post will convince you that my exciting news is not that i’m pregnant! seriously, readers, you’ve got to quit guessing that! : )

this is a different kind-of life change. the kind-of change where i go from working two great jobs to working one absolutely amazing job. the kind-of change where i go from working 50-60 hours a week to working a solid 40 with some extra time on the weekends. the kind-of change where i go from not having time to do simple things like grocery shop to having time to be a good wife again, not just a bacon-bringer.

this is the kind-of life change that will make it hard to quit my job and have a family someday.

[okay, it won’t be that hard, you all know by now how much i want a vanload of kids someday, but hey, i’m only 22!]

now, there are some skeptics [ahem, erik] out there that think i have a habit of getting a new job every couple of months…trust me, i’m sticking with this one as long as i can.

readers, i have been offered my dream job. and i have accepted.

i get the privilege of becoming veritas‘ new full-time coordinator!

can you tell i’m excited?! i wanted to scream, but thankfully, i have a mother for that. she did scream. by the way. both of my bosses know [i would not be posting this if they didn’t], and they were both so awesome to talk to. i’m so thankful for believing bosses!

God has been more than good to bryan and me this past year since we moved to iowa city. and He continues to dump on the goodness. thanks God!

may tuition update

may was a long month. a very long month for this girl. i think may always seems long, every year. between spring busyness [let me hear you shout weddings!], general anticipation for summer, and the whole 31 day thing, it’s just long. add working more than ever, teaching 37 kids for three days, and waiting for some very important news all month to those and you’ll get a very. tired. lisagrace.

i could go on about how stressful life has been this past month, but i don’t want to bore you. oh, and the important news? look for that in the next post. and no, for the last time, i’m not pregnant! : )

but hey! it’s june. and all of the above has been resolved, so life is on the up and up.

because of lots of extra work for me [and triple paycheck month-love those!] and bryan starting his job at fareway, we set a hefty savings goal of $1,200.00. i’m happy to say we did that and $17.95 more! less than 75% to go!

tuition for 2011-2012 school year: $9,654.00
savings at the end of may: $2,517.95
difference: $7,136.05
percentage saved: 26.08%
percentage left to save: 73.92%

if you have a little extra time, here’s a funny student loan story, this is why i’m so glad God has given us so much wisdom with our finances. they make it so easy to take out more than you need in student loans!

at the end of april, we officially filed the paperwork to apply for $5,500 worth of unsubsidized stafford loans. we’re certain we won’t need any more than that for the upcoming school year and are hoping we don’t need any of it, obviously, but it’s a just-in-case precaution. we were approved for quite a bit more than that, but we were careful to cancel all the other loans. when you fill out your paperwork, they automatically assume you want the maximum amount you were approved for so you have to cancel the ones you don’t want. isn’t that silly?

anyway, a couple weeks ago, we got a check in the mail. a $6,200.00 check. just a check that said something about a refund on the memo, no note, no explanation, just a big fat check. we’ve never taken out student loans before, so i thought, maybe we’re getting our loan for next fall early, but why and why so much? if it wasn’t for the fall, then it was for this past year, and we didn’t pay even close to that much with the scholarship that bryan got. why would we need more money after everything’s done and paid for?

already long story short, i guess because we just filled out our loan paperwork, it activated a student loan we were approved for last year and they sent us a check! while buying a boat was tempting, we took that check straight to the financial offices and straightened it out. we didn’t want to owe that much money later. : )

april tuition update

this whole month i’ve been stressed about this tuition thing. things seemed so discouraging all month long. until this week. why am i ever ever anxious when i have this promise?

God is definitely reminding us that He loves us and desires to take care of us. i’ve been working more hours at the coffee shop since the new store has opened, so that’s been a temporary blessing. bryan finally got a job! he is going to be working at the fareway meat counter. we found a great deal on a moped which will make it possible for bryan to get to work. (although, extra vehicle expenses are no fun either…) a dear friend connected me to an opportunity in which i will make an extra $300 for three days of work in may. praise Him!

God also continues to teach us generosity, we wrote a few more checks this past month to summer missions trips. i want you to know that i don’t say this to impress you or feel good about myself, believe me, i wouldn’t say it all if i didn’t want to encourage you in this way. this has been something God has been teaching me a lot about lately, and i want to take this moment to share with you. also, check out this message from our old church. super convicting.

my friend, mikki, who is in our amazing connection group shared the best perspective on tithing i’ve ever heard. she and her soon-to-be husband are both dental students and thus living off of student loans for the time-being. but she said something like this: whenever we tithe, we’re technically paying 7% interest or whatever it is on that loan money. but who’s to say that God’s work isn’t worth 7% interest?

that hit me hard! what an awesome way to think about giving to the Lord’s work. so i want to say, before i update you, that if we have to take out student loans because we gave too much of our money away this past month, bring it on.

with that said, here’s our update for april:

tuition for 2011-2012 school year: $9,654.00
savings at the end of april: $1,300.00
difference: $8,354.00
percentage saved: 13.46%
percentage left to save: 86.54%

i was not expecting to really put any extra in the bank, so i’m encouraged!

march update [tuition savings]

march was an interesting month. we found out that we didn’t receive any financial aid for bryan’s last year of school. so, we had a long talk, went over some things in our budget and buckled down. more importantly though, god and i had a really awesome heart to heart.

can i just say that all that stuff in the bible is actually true?! he is the god of all comfort and the great provider who loves us so much. i haven’t forgotten that his true and perfect act of love is all i need, and yet he continues to provide more!

god is also the greatest, most gentle and patient teacher. he has been teaching me a bunch about his generosity and being open-handed with our money.

the morning before we received our financial aid notification, i was sitting in church, listening to the message and god asked me to give a certain amount to the summer missions trips. i said okay and talked to bryan about it as soon as i got home. he agreed to this and then we found out that we didn’t get any financial aid. isn’t god’s timing funny? we wrote the checks, even though it was hard. that whole week, god tested our generosity. he kept reminding me of the countless times we’ve benefited from the generosity of others [you know who you are!], and we both felt overwhelmingly that we should open our hearts and bank account to those in need.

it has been such a blessing to follow god’s leadership in this area. especially because i have had a particularly tight grip on our finances, especially since we decided to move to iowa city. but when has god ever not provided for his children?

i’ve been insanely encouraged by all of you i’ve talked to, or who commented on my last blog, or sent me emails of encouragement. thank you, thank you, thank you!

sorry for the long, heart-exposing blog, but it happens every once in a while!

here’s our financial update for march:

tuition for 2011-2012 school year: $9,654.00
savings at the end of march: $1,100.00
difference: $8,554.00
percentage saved: 11.39%
percentage left to save: 88.61%

we have progress! can’t wait to see what God does!

alsberries

enjoying the sweet life

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